Don't Look Twice, It's Alright

I'm walkin' down that long, lonesome road
Where I'm bound, I can't tell
But goodbye's too good a word, gal
So I'll just say fare thee well.
I ain't sayin' you treated me unkind
You could have done better but I don't mind
You just kinda wasted my precious time
But don't think twice, it's all right.
Bob Dylan “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright”

There is a very distinct feeling when you know you’ve been replaced. It is a feeling of impending dread that starts in your core and spreads outwards. When you actually see it, the face, the words or the voice, it is like a eight pound rabbit kicking its hind-legs into your abdomen. That’s the best example I can come with; when I was a kid, we kept rabbits, and my mother used to constantly warn not to hold the sweet bunny too close or he would kick your intestines out or something.

Anyways, perhaps a better comparison would be the feeling like when you run into your ex. It’s unexpected, it leaves you winded, and you feel like all the energy and matter put into such an intimate relationship has POOF! vanished.

And it always happens at the lowest point. For example, at the job I had before FU (oh, those were the days), my ex decided to stop by. It was literally one of those summers where I just stopped asking, “What else can go wrong?” because, trust me, it kept getting worse. The guy I had been seeing for 18 months literally disappeared into thin air, only to litter my in-box on with updates about his sperm count, I was utterly broke, flailed and failed to obtain adequate funding for The Greatest University Ever and was about to be jobless (since my boss thought I was going to The Greatest University Ever because I turned in my notice months before). And here he strolls in, the ex before David Copperfield, newly married, about to be a dad, brandishing a new car and a motorcycle license. The license particularly stung since he had promised to pay for motorcycle safety classes for my 24th birthday and forgot to do it. I did what any girl in my position would do: I went back to my boss’s office and threw up in his trashcan while looking like a million dollars.

Anyways, it was officially brought to my attention that I was indeed replaced by someone younger and more hip at FU. I always felt out of place, like a square peg in a round hole. Occasionally I tried to make small talk at the watering hole (aka, the coffee machine), but frankly, I just didn’t care that my boss walked his Persians on a leash or that my desk mate kept illegal farm animals in the city. Nor did ever think anybody would find my tap classes particularly interesting. When they talked about fine wines, organic vegetables and the romantic escapades of former gay professors, I just quietly looked down at my Whopper, plump with chemicals and trans fats, and pretended to listen. A colleague once remarked that I never said ‘hello’ in the morning, which is certainly true: I am not a fan of walking out of my way to another cubicle when there is work to be done just to greet someone who already knew I was there to begin with.

But no worries. I am sure that the new girl will be a much better fit. After all, her name sounded terribly familiar, and sure enough, I quickly gained access to the pictures that she put up on the interwebs, mostly drunken escapades with her super cool friends. I forgot to mention. I am not cool. I only drink socially, never have passed out or puked on someone’s shoes, never tried pot, and have been clubbing a total of three times my entire life. I do not like “Pissing In the Gene Pool” or The Killers. I do not wear vintage pieces rescued from the trash bins of the city. This girl is pretty open and honest too. No dirty secrets, like “I may look like a secretary, but I am really a future doctoral candidate.” She even admits in her posts that she sucks at her job. But I’m sure that the scrupulous bureaucrats at FU already know this.

Instead, it is time to focus on my own path. Somewhere, the breadcrumbs I dropped along the way have been plucked up.

Someone told me to smile. My boss probably thinks he is doing me a favor.

I replied that cutting me loose during a re-enactment of the Great Depression was no favor. I am only reassured that I get a chance at life to not end up like him.